Sveum plays it by the book, his

You might expect a guy who manages for Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer to embrace sabermetrics. OK, if not embrace sabermetrics, accept it. Or maybe even pronounce it correctly.

In a somewhat humorous exchange with reporters before Tuesday's 7-6 loss to the Cardinals in St. Louis, Cubs' manager Dale Sveum was asked to rehash his decision of the previous night to attempt a sacrifice with No. 3 hitter Starlin Castro in the eighth inning of a 4-4 game.

After the game, Sveum said that he was trying to avoid the double play and that his players ought to know how to bunt.

The next day, he essentially told reporters that he manages the team, thank you very much.

"You're not going to ask certain people (to bunt) if they're not capable of doing things," Sveum said. "But he's capable. He runs good, so if it is a really good bunt he can beat it out.

"You can go on and on about the goods and the bads of all of these things. The bottom line is I'm the one that makes the decisions. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't."

Sveum added that he hasn't discussed sabermetrics, which kind of came out as "cybermetrics," with Epstein, the team president known for his analytical approach to baseball, in tandem with general manage Hoyer.

"You wan to talk about (sabermetrics/cybermetics), then OK," Sveum said. "Then you talk about the team that has more people on base during the course of the game is going to win way more games than the other teams.

"You want to keep intentionally walking guys and all that? Then the odds gradually come (in the other team's) favor to win the game. If (the opposing team's) third, fourth and fifth hitters get up five times in a game, you've got a chance of losing that game at an alarming rate."

In fairness to Sveum, he does talk in terms of slugging percentage, on-base percentage and other metrics and probabilities frequently. He also made a point to say that Castro is not a prototypical No. 3 hitter and that he would be asked to bunt from time to time.